Show News, Photos, Updates

Whatever happened to that early spring the groundhog promised us? Snow, snow, and more snow...our schools closed again today, and more snow is expected during the night! Enough already!

We are back from a successful weekend at the Belle City Kennel Club show. The show was held at the beautiful facility at Purina Farms in Gray Summit, MO. You may recall I was worried about Windy's tail. Well, we made some progress and reached what I hope is a turning point. She was not fearful and shaking this time. On Saturday, she held her tail down both for her individual class and for the Winners Bitch class. There was a brief spark of hope when she first took off to go around the ring, shook herself, and the tail came up. But, alas, it went back down. On Sunday, she again held it down in her puppy class. However, in the Winners Bitch class as she followed the other Lhasa around the ring, her tail was up. I was thrilled and felt as good as if she had won a major! One of the saddest sights is a Lhasa in the show ring with its  tail down. (It is an especially sad sight if you are the person on the other end of her lead!)

Rafe did well. I am so proud of him! He took Best of Breed both days over a nice male special and a nice bitch special. We showed in the Group but did not place. At the end of this post is another video taken of him in the Group ring on Saturday. Those two Best of Breed wins gave him more than enough points to finish his Grand Championship! Hurray!! We now have a new Grand Champion -- GCh. Ch. Joyslyn's Inherit the Wind. The video below shows him in Sunday's breed ring.

At home, the Raven's boys are doing well and growing fast. It's hard to believe they are already 6 weeks old. Time has passed quickly. They are enjoying investigating the family room and playing with Ellie.

Gus, 6 weeks

Duncan, 6 weeks

 Speaking of Ellie, she is now 3 months old. I found a picture of her grandmother (Rafe's mom) at age 4 months and think there is a definite resemblance.

Ellie, 3 months

Dancer, Ellie's Grandma, 4 months

Here is a link to the new Lhasa Apso video from the American Lhasa Apso Club.

Griffin II

The owners of Rafe's litter brother, Griffin II, (Loretta and Tom) shared a photo of Griffin. I enjoy seeing the kids from that litter. They are all just precious. They have lovely dispositions and such sweet faces. It's also fun to see the variety of "hair styles" given them by their groomers.

Chickens in Miami

My daughter lives in Miami. The last time I went to visit her I was amazed to see a rooster hanging around the parking lot in front of the area Publix grocery. Her friend told me that Miami is full of chickens, so each spring my daughter sends me photos of the latest hatchlings that live in the park across from her apartment building. Here is the most recent. Evidently Spring has arrived in Miami!

We received sad news from Fred and Melinda that Lily, Ch. Joyslyn's My One N Only passed away a month shy of her 15th birthday. Melinda and Fred bought Lily from us when she was  9 years old as a companion for a very active young Lhasa male, "Keeper," they bought from us who later became their first champion. Melinda's note said, "Fred and I wanted to thank you for letting us have Lily so many years ago…we've had her sweetness and silliness for nearly 6 wonderful years. Not long enough....She was always entertaining (even during her dreaded grooming sessions, lol). We are broken hearted…[the house] feels and sounds empty with our very special little Silly, Pilly, Lily gone."

Lily the show dog!

Lily was quite a character. She enjoyed life to the fullest, was quite a clown, and was sometimes a challenge to show. For example, she did not want to follow ring protocol and preferred to stack herself facing backward instead of forward in the line up. She was very animated and more than one judge was left smiling or shaking his/her head after seeing Lily. She would not be denied though, and more often than not came away the winner. At home she had many nicknames, including Lily Ann, Lily Munster, and Silly Lily. We were happy to share this lively girl with Fred and Melinda. I know she gave them a lot of love and joy.

Lily on a boat in her retirement

Unfortunately, the "Problematic PUPS Bill" (so dubbed by AKC) has once again been reintroduced. Here are some snippets about the bill from AKC's Legislative Alert.
Federal Legislative Alert: Problematic PUPS Bill Reintroduced for 2013
(Friday, March 01, 2013)
"Federal "PUPS" legislation (S 395/HR 847), sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Jim Gerlach has been reintroduced in the U.S. Congress and assigned to the House and Senate Agriculture committees. The bill is substantially the same as previous versions introduced in 2011 and 2010, which never received committee hearings...as currently written, the definitions proposed in this bill are misleading, overly broad, and potentially damaging to small responsible breeders who individually maintain and breed only a few dogs in their homes.
AKC's specific concerns with PUPS include the following:
*   Defines "high volume retail breeder" as someone with "an ownership interest in or custody of one or more breeding female dogs". This definition is overly broad and does not take into account co- and joint ownerships common among dog owners, dog show participants, hunting club members, sporting dog trainers and other hobbyists. This would hurt many small hobby breeders who keep or breed only a few dogs in their homes by subjecting them to commercial standards of regulation as a result of agreements they maintain with other small breeders.
*   Defines "high volume retail breeder" as someone with "an ownership interest in or custody of one or more breeding female dogs". Because the threshold for regulation is based on the number of dogs bred and sold, any reference to the number of dogs owned or in custody is unnecessary and potentially misleading.
*   Defines "breeding female" as an intact female dog aged 4 months or older. This is misleading and implies that a female dog may be bred at 4 months. Female dogs are not sufficiently mature at 4 months of age to be bred and should not be deemed "breeding females".
*   Exercise language should be clarified with respect to the terms "solitary and goal oriented" to ensure that the daily exercise requirements do not preclude training that involves other types of wholesome activity that could fall under this definition (e.g., playing fetch, field training for hunting dogs, or the responsible use of treadmills for keeping canine athletes in top physical condition).
*   PUPS would exponentially expand the pool of breeders regulated and inspected by the Animal Care Division of the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal, Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS). However, a May 2010 audit of this program by the USDA's own Inspector General demonstrated that the existing inspections program is insufficient to carry out current responsibilities. AKC believes these issues and full funding for the current program and enforcement of current laws should be addressed before attempting to exponentially expand the program's responsibilities and workload.

AKC encourages you to respectfully share these reasonable concerns about the potential damaging consequences of this bill with your member of Congress."

Life is better when you have a Lhasa to love you!

Joyce

Here is a video of Rafe in the Group ring last weekend.